When you throw a website out on the internet, you’ve staked a little corner of the internet as your own.
But is it doing anything for you?
A website should be an investment in your business, which means it absolutely should offer some kind of return.
The way that many customers find us is so varied these days. They see us on social media, then maybe get an email, read a blog, or listen to a podcast before they may ever really explore our websites.
Then of course some get to your website organically through Google and other search engines.
With every customer coming to us through a myriad of ways, how do you know if your website is working for your business as a silent salesperson?
There are several factors you should be paying attention to. Let’s dive into what matters.
Are People Even Coming to Your Website?
The most important thing to understand is how many people are visiting your website (besides you and your team).
Unfortunately, websites are not a “build it and they will come” thing. You have to give them a reason to come there in the first place and then a reason to come back again.
Most website platforms offer some kind of analytics and tracking that you can use to check how many people are hitting your website. However, if you want the clearest picture of your numbers, I’d add Google Analytics. They’ll keep track of all the data you need and you can even see what search terms are bringing people to your website when you pair it with Google Search Console.
Just an aside – yes, I know this sounds technical and it can be. If you don’t want to dive deep into Google Analytics, you can hire someone to look at your numbers and tell you what everything means. However, just seeing your most visited pages is pretty straightforward.
When you look at how many people visit your website – called traffic – you want to ensure that you’re paying attention to what pages they’re looking at most, where they come from (social media, clicks, ads, Google search), and if they’re coming from geographic areas that you want to work with.
Look at a few months, because you want to see if that number is overall trending up or down, too. Many of us have seasons in our business when things are busier, but you don’t want to constantly be losing traffic.
Do Visitors Do Anything on Your Website?
Now that you know how many people are coming to your website and what they’re looking at, it’s time to ask – are they doing anything though?
The purpose of a website, when you’re trying to get a return on it anyway, is not to just have people visit. They need to do something.
How do you work with your clients? Do they need to book a call, fill out a form, pay for a service directly, or join your email list?
Ask yourself – are any of these happening?
I know as a service-based business that it’s important that I get on calls with leads. We’re selling a higher-ticket thing that will sometimes take a few months and time working together to finish that project. We all want to like the people we’re working with, so a call or meeting is really important to gauge the fit.
Are you consistently getting on those calls?
Do you get forms from new people wanting to work with you?
Of course, many times with a service-based business a customer may not want to work with you immediately, but they do like your content. To know if you’re getting those colder leads paying attention, you’d need to know if they’re signing up for your lead magnet, commenting on or reading multiple blogs, or looking at your services pages for a longer time.
We can’t just have people visit our websites, we need our websites to make them take some kind of action and move them toward working with us.
Set Clear Goals for Your Website
If you’re listening to this and wondering how to answer these questions for yourself and your business, I want you to do a little exercise.
Pull out a notebook or open up a Google Doc. Answer these questions for your business:
- What sales process works best for me? (Filling out a form, scheduling a call, getting on your email list, for example).
- What do I want someone to do when they come to my website? Write down a few and rank those in order of what’s most important.
- What am I hoping to get out of my website? Why did I build it?
Now, start looking through your website and ask yourself:
- What are you telling customers to do to work with you?
- Are you being super clear in how to work with you?
- Do you make it easy to find that answer?
- How many clicks does it take to find that?
- Are you clear about the benefits they’ll get working with you?
Take these answers and just ruminate on them for awhile.
What typically happens when I work with a customer is that their website is not very clear and it’s incredibly hard for a customer to know “what’s next.”
Honestly – the worst-case scenario here is that they like your content but don’t know what to do, so they hit the back button and look for someone else on Google or social media to help them.
That doesn’t have to be you.
Unlock Your Website’s Potential
Your website can be an incredibly powerful tool for your business, helping to bring in consistent leads and customers.
But it can’t do that if you aren’t doing the things you need to bring them to your website and then convert them once they’re there.
If you want your website to become a silent salesperson in your business, then you need to unlock your website’s potential.
As my holiday present to you, I’ve got a free guide! Download it below to get 10 strategies to turn visitors into leads.
You’ll learn how to capture the people who want to work with you – and even what you may be doing wrong now.
Download Free Guide
